


Dethorning

by cookinguptales



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 21:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21259736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookinguptales/pseuds/cookinguptales
Summary: Killia, a hardworking space florist, often finds her pragmatism tested by the spoiled and flighty Princess Beian. But now, on the eve of the royal wedding, what might Beian persuade her to do?





	Dethorning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smarky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarky/gifts).

Sunset lilies. Killia hated sunset lilies. She yanked at one of the stems with a little more force than was strictly necessary, then winced as its delicate petals came apart in her hands, staining her blue hands scarlet. She’d have to be more careful. Hated or not, lilies were pricy.

Usually, this time of day was a busy one in her flower shop. Usually, there was a cheerful sort of hustle and bustle of humans buying presents, B’reth buying paint ingredients, and Golgots buying lunch. Killia didn’t much care what they did with the flowers, truthfully speaking. The profession had been passed down through her mother’s side, the human side, but that didn’t mean that she held quite the same sentimentalities that her mother had. Flowers were pretty, but they were ultimately wares like anything else.

Still. Sometimes Killia wished that she’d bothered to learn all the floral lore that had meant to so much to her mother before she’d died. Sometimes.

Other times, like now, she cursed the fact that she’d ever even entered into the profession. _Thrice-damned sunset lilies._ Didn’t even have any customers to distract her. _Thrice-damned feast day._

Then, as if in response to her increasingly sour internal monologue, the bell at the front of her shop rang. Killia looked up, but there was no one there. Which meant, of course, that only one person could be standing in front of her.

“Beian?” she asked, quietly, half-hushed.

“Killia.” The murmur came from behind her, only a breath away from Killia’s ear.

All of Killia’s air rushed out of her at once, only to come back in on a hiccuping breath. “Beian — how — Beian, you can’t _be_ here!”

“And you can’t order me around,” Beian said behind her, and Killia could just picture the haughty look on her face. “I’m your princess.”

“Which is why you can’t be here!” Killia hissed. This wasn’t at all how today was supposed to go. Today was supposed to be boring. She was about to pull the still-beating heart from her chest and shove it into that stupid sunset lily bouquet, and it wasn’t even going to have the grace to be interesting. Just more prep for… “Shouldn’t you be at the palace? Rehearsing?”

“Rehearsing for what?” Beian asked, her voice drawn tight with bitterness. “My funeral?”

This, this right here was why Killia wasn’t allowed to be melodramatic. Why she wasn’t allowed to scream and cry and throw the entire fucking basket of lilies to the ground. Why she just had to keep dethorning them, one by one, movements measured and _boring._

Beian was more than melodramatic enough for the both of them.

“It’s not a funeral, Beian,” Killia said, suddenly feeling very tired. “If it were, the flowers wouldn’t be half so colorful.”

A shifting of robes behind her, and then she felt a warm hand cover hers, a soft breast press up against her back. Those fingers held her own, firm, and stilled them in their work. “Stop that. Stop dressing flowers for—”

“Your wedding, Beian. We all… we all knew it had to happen sooner or later. You’re not in line for the throne. Your parents would be crazy to let you stay here when they could marry you off to one of their partners. You’ll be much more useful to them if you’re off… ambassador-ing, or whatever. Whatever you do when you’re off-world.”

Even if Beian had been the first daughter, her parents would have been crazy to keep her cooped up in the palace. She was a born ambassador. Killia had never left their planet, had never even left this municipality, and she still knew that much. People were always gossiping about the queen’s youngest daughter. The way she could joke and flirt and negotiate in a dizzying number of languages. The way she’d organized peace in no fewer than four skirmishes. The way you felt so important, so special when she smiled at you.

Killia swallowed hard, feeling Beian’s breaths against her back, and wished that it weren’t quite so illegal to shove a princess.

“I don’t have to get married to become an ambassador, Killia. I could just…”

“Stay here?” Killia’s laugh was short, ugly in her throat. “With me? No. We both know that they want you installed in a foreign court.”

The breaths behind her went just a little bit unsteady. “And what if I don’t care what they want?”

Killia stared straight ahead, so hard that her vision began to fuzz around the edges. “Then you should care about what your people want.”

The wedding was tomorrow, but the festivities had lasted the entire week. Killia had never seen this municipality so happy. Any excuse for a party, really, but everyone loved Beian. They were all so proud of their youngest princess. So eager to see her venture off into the world and make it her own. To make them all a little safer, a little more prosperous.

“What _all_ my people want?”

A little more alone. Killia knew she should say yes, but it stuck in her throat. She’d known, of course. She’d always known how this little tryst would go. But from the first moment that a young girl barely even her own age had slipped into her parents’ shop, she’d looked into wide, bright eyes and known that she was lost to them. Even when she’d found out that it was a princess drinking tea in their storage room. Even when that princess had laughed at the trick she’d played on her guards, blithely ignorant to the fact that Killia’s entire family could have been jailed for hiding her.

The guards had gotten used to it over time, the princess slipping away from them. And Killia’s parents had gotten used to it, too, having the youngest princess of their kingdom lounging against the counter laughing with their daughter over yet another stolen cloaking device.

Killia had never quite gotten used to it, though, the way that Beian’s eyes would go soft and knowing when they looked at each other. The way Beian would slip her hand into hers, lilac skin against blue, and breathe against her neck. Would kiss her, if no one was looking.

Beian would lean into her space while she was gathering stardrops for the front window and smile and make all kinds of promises that they both knew she couldn’t keep. She always had. She’d always, always done that, recklessly playing with Killia’s heart when they both knew it was dangerous.

Dangerous.

Killia knew she should say yes, that all of Beian’s people wanted her to marry and go off on some grand adventure that could only net them all prosperity. But she couldn’t. Not quite. _Gods, you’re dangerous, Beian._ “No. Not all of them.” She swallowed. “But enough of them to matter.”

“None of that matters, Killia,” Beian said, fiercely, then winked into existence as she switched the cloaking device off and pulled Killia around to face her in one fluid movement. “The only thing that matters is that I stay with you.”

Killia wished that Beian had kept the device on. Then she wouldn’t have to see Beian in all of her festive finery. Not quite the wedding garb, not yet, but still far lovelier than the usual rags she wore when she ran away to play hooky with a townie florist. Deep scarlet robes hugged her curves and accentuated the rosy highlights in her lilac skin, and her face had been painted up in the deep green royal sigils that had meant something once upon a time. “You look so beautiful,” she whispered. Damn it all.

Beian’s eyes softened, and Killia hated it when she looked at her like that. She loved it so much that she couldn’t help but hate it. “You do, too, Killia. Every day. And I won’t leave here without you.”

“Yes, I’m sure your new spouse would love that,” Killia said dryly. “A little townie stowaway fucking their wife whenever they’re not home.”

Beian’s mouth twisted, but it was up at the corners in that way that always made Killia want to kiss her. “Cheek. You’re supposed to be nicer to your princess, you know.” And then her mouth flattened out again. “I’m serious, Killia. I’m leaving here and I’m taking you with me.”

“Of course you’re leaving, you’re—” And then Killia froze. “You don’t mean...” Even Beian, beautiful, tumultuous Beian, couldn’t be that mad.

“I do,” Beian said, and took both of Killia’s hands in her own. “Maybe — maybe not for good. I don’t know. Long enough that we could get away from here. See the universe. Get married. Show my parents that I can be useful to the planet even if I do it as my own woman. I can — I can still do diplomatic missions. I can still scout out new planets. I can still do everything they need me to.”

“Except form an alliance,” Killia said softly. She was feeling oddly numb now, like she’d laid on one of her appendages for too long and put it to sleep... except that appendage was her heart. None of this was quite permeating. How could it? None of this made any sense. “This isn’t how things are done, Beian.”

“How things are done?” Beian scoffed. “A hundred years ago, women couldn’t rule this planet. A thousand years ago, humans weren’t allowed to set foot on our soil. Even five years ago, our alliance planets were totally different. Things have always been changed, Killia. And I’m changing them.” She squeezed Killia’s hands and gave her a nervous little grin. “We both are. You just have to come with me.”

“Come with you where, Beian, you don’t even have—”

“I have a ship, Killia. I have a crew. I have everything we’ll need for a long journey. They’re hidden amongst all the traveling vessels. What’s one more ship amongst thousands? They’ll never notice,” Beian said.

Killia paused. She looked at Beian’s face, saw the nervous certainty there, and remembered the first time the two of them had played Styrlian chess against each other. The way Killia had plunged blindly ahead in a game she scarcely knew how to play, then realized at the end that Beian had planned the entire thrice-damned game around the trap she’d fallen into. “You’ve been planning this,” she said slowly, but with a dawning certainty that she was right. “For a long, long time.”

“Yes,” Beian said. “For as long as I’ve known I wanted forever.”

“With—”

“With you, silly.”

Killia opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. _With you._ “But I’m just—”

“Hush,” Beian said, rubbing her thumb against Killia’s wrist. “Royal order. You’re not allowed to say that you’re ‘just’ anything. Unless you tell me that you’re just mine.”

Killia felt tears pricking at the corner of her eyes and she cursed every human ancestor that had given her tear ducts. “Idiot,” she whispered. “You sound like a holo-romance.”

“Good,” Beian said, and bent her head so she could press a kiss to Killia’s fingers. “You deserve a little romance.” A pause, an unsteady breath. “Please say yes, Killia.”

Killia breathed in and out, shaky, and thought that maybe their lives should have been reversed. Maybe Beian would have been right at home with Killia’s mother and all of her books of flower languages and poetry. Maybe she would have been silly and flighty and incredibly canny enough to carry this family business to new heights. And maybe Killia would have made a very good princess, humble and pragmatic and imminently biddable. She never would have said no to a royal engagement, would have instead made a home off-world with stubborn dependability. Maybe she would have served the court well. Maybe she would have spread their planet’s royal tendrils out into unknown lands.

But neither of them would have been half so happy then. Her heart wouldn’t be half so full, and she wouldn’t be laughing like all of her emotions were overflowing the tiny container she’d been trying to hold them in. Beian wouldn’t be looking at her like she held the moon and stars tucked away in her smile, and nothing would have been nearly so rosy and beautiful and perfect.

“Yes,” she finally said, and before Beian could reply with even one more word of courtly foolishness, she leaned in to capture her lips with her own.

Things would change. Together, they would change them.


End file.
